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Ohio State University president apologizes for comments against Catholics

Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee has a tendency to say stupid things then apologize. Most recently, the Catholic faith is his target/apology recipient.

At a gathering of OSU’s athletic council over the winter, Gee was discussing the prospect of Notre Dame joining the Big Ten Conference, and the AP was the first to print his off-the-cuff comment:

“The fathers are holy on Sunday, and they’re holy hell on the rest of the week. You just can’t trust those damn Catholics on a Thursday or a Friday, and so, literally, I can say that.”

Literally, you can’t say that.

So, Gee issued this apology in a statement:

"The comments I made were just plain wrong, and in no way do they reflect what the university stands for. They were a poor attempt at humor and entirely inappropriate. There is no excuse for this, and I am deeply sorry."

“In January, 2012, as Gee was discussing the difficulty of coordinating multiple university divisions at a speech in Columbus and said, "When we had these 18 colleges all kind of floating around, they were kind of like PT boats, they were shooting each other. It was kind of like the Polish army or something.

…

“In a 2010 interview with the AP about which football teams should play for the college title, Gee mocked universities outside the power conferences by saying the Buckeyes didn't play "the Little Sisters of the Poor.

“Gee, who didn't realize then that the Little Sisters of the Poor was a religious order that cares for the elderly poor, visited a home near Toledo operated by the order last August …”

Gee was also asked during the December athletic summit—the one where he made the Catholic crack—about how he would respond to SEC fans who question the fact that the Big Ten has 14 members:

“You tell the SEC when they can learn to read and write, then they can figure out what we’re doing.”

No apology was attempted for fans of SEC teams. But, like this writer (a graduate of an SEC school), we probably wouldn’t be able to read it anyway.